So I had a chance to give some serious attempts on Heroic Blackhand tonight with the group finder for a guild run missing a tank and all I have to say is wow. The fight is split into 3 phases and the 1st phase isn't very hard but the 2nd feels like if you had to do Phase 2 of Heroic Garrosh and a super amped up version of the adds in Kargath at the same time. Lots of adds and the damage the raid takes ramps up awful quick, requiring a very high DPS output to avoid being overwhelmed.

Phase 3 itself isn't overly complex but requires a lot of DPS to get through before running out of space on the platform, which means you have to get so good at phase 2 that you start phase 3 with everyone up with cool downs ready. The damage output is even more intense and means healers have got to still have their cool downs as well & likely have to plan them out so one is always up for the high damage points.

At best, we got to phase 3 a couple times with just a few people dead but ran out of room before downing the boss.

Overall, this is a very interesting fight. It's much shorter than the Imperator fight but also a lot more intense. Like the Garrosh fight, Blackhand boils down to one colossal DPS check; can you get through Phase 2 quick enough to avoid the adds building up, can you get through phase 3 fast enough to not run out of room, and can you do it all without any mistakes. I can see why the elitists over at the WoW Dungeon and Raid forum who normally don't even consider early Mythic fights "hard" consider this to be a tough encounter.

So I must've made a good impression as the group I was with on the 20th invited me tonight for some more tasty Blackhand progression and this time we got him down!!!

Phase 1 is like an entry level gear check. There's not much strat besides moving the boss in a circle around the room as he drops slag mines and people targeted by Marked for Death to run behind rubble piles so the real test is whether or not you can get through the phase fast enough to not tax the healers.

Phase 2 is the meat of the fight. It can't be rushed through as you need to save hero for phase 3 so you've got to be able to keep the adds from building up on the second level and keep the siegemaker tanks under control for a decent chunk of time. The person kiting the siegemaker must kite it through slag mines and those targeted by Marked for Death must get the siegemaker in-between them and the boss. This is tougher than it sounds as people need to keep track or where the siegemaker is and position themselves to be able to get there before the boss impales you. The group I was in had to deal with 4 siegemakers before we got to phase 3 on our kill.

Phase 3 is a really sneaky hard DPS race. The bosses abilities aren't too complex and he doesn't start out hitting all that hard but he ramps up his damage fast such that all of a sudden people will just start dying. On the kill there were 4 people alive out of 11 and they'd have all died in another few seconds. What we did for strategy was to tank the boss at an edge, those stuck with slag mines went left, those targeted by Marked for Death went right, and all healers and DPS grouped with the tank actively tanking Blackhand for his Smash (to split the damage) and make sure you get knocked back towards the center. Rinse and repeat around the platform.

This is a very hard fight but also pretty fun. Each phase feels very different and each presents a different set of challenges.